mountain structure, while the possession of but one eye and tooth plainly alludes to the fact that only one crater was in action at a time. Their names also, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa are significant in Greek of their character, Sthenos, is strength, power; Euryalos, wide-spreading; Mudos, light, airy; and Gorgos, swift, vivid.

With this key the fabulous deeds related of the Amazons and Gorgons become actual geographical facts. The conquests of the Amazons under their queen Myrina refer to the diluvial action which has so greatly altered the face of our globe, and to which we again shall have occasion to revert when we touch on the subject of Physical Geography in a subsequent paper. Will not an examination of these subjects studied in the way we have been here endeavouring to point out, enable us to see more clearly into the minds of our ancestors, and while it gives us a juster appreciation of their knowledge, enables us to look more leniently on their ignorance and deficiencies, and by the light and experience thus acquired, the more surely to dispel our own. If we do this, we shall not have studied in vain.

Sir,

DISABILITIES OF PUPIL TEACHERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

If you think the following worthy of notice, will you kindly allow me to say a word through your columns in behalf of the Pupil Teachers now serving their apprenticeship. I would desire to mention facts only. There were at School some five

years ago two lads of nearly the same standing, one being nearly three years older than the other. The younger left and became apprenticed to a silk mercer, the elder stayed at school and shortly became a Pupil Teacher. Four years passed away and the mercer wishing to become a teacher went to a training college, where after twelve months study, he sat for a certificate, and obtained an appointment as assistant in a most respectable school, with a promise from very reputable quarters of the mastership of a school in the course of six months; the elder had by this time served upwards of four years and a half of his apprenticeship. At the examination at which the mercer sat for a certificate, the Pupil Teacher sat for a scholarship, but was shortly after informed he was ineligible, not having completed his fifth year. He will therefore, have to remain another year at school, then supposing him to be successful in gaining a scholarship, he must study for one year at least before gaining a certificate, and being declared a competent schoolmaster. The summary of the foregoing amounts to this-The youth apprenticed to the silk mercer for four years has gained a precedence of two or three years of him apprenticed to the schoolmaster-so that an indirect encouragement seems held out to those desiring the profession of teachers, to become by way of preparation any thing but Pupil Teachers.

I should like to read in your valuable periodical, the opinions and experiences of any of my brother schoolmasters on the same subject.

AN ELEMENTARY TEACHER.

P.S. I wish it to be distinctly understood, that this is written without the slightest idea of disparaging the young men who leave trades for the teachers' profession.

NOTES OF VISITS TO SOME NATIONAL SCHOOLS IN 1856.

་་

HEN out for a holiday it is my custom to look into as many schools as fall in my way. This I do for my own sake; for although I have had many years' experience as a public schoolmaster, I find that there is always much to learn and unlearn in school matters and further that one of the very best ways of doing this is to see one's own work performed under one's own circumstances by others. Actuated by this consideration I visited some schools last summer.

I have sent this account of what I heard and saw in my visits to two or three schools, to the editor of the Journal of Education, not so much from any belief in its intrinsic value, or wish that he will insert it in his excellent periodical, as from a hope that he will induce some of his very able contributors to supply what in this paper is only indicated as desirable.

SCHOOL A.-This is a large and important school in a city of ten or twelve thousand inhabitants. The room, which is the upper floors of two or three tenements, has been much improved since a visit I made in 1849, and is now very well adapted to its purpose. The grouping of the classes I thought very defective: e. g. they were not equi-distant-some were very much too close together, and being open they took up much room, and worst of all one could not readily and easily pass from class to class. There was a group of parallel desks, four or five deep and twenty feet in length, on the floor! The master is young, and certificated: he was trained in the south of England, and has not long been in his present school. I was sorry to find that he objected to parallel groups and curtains, both of which I would strongly advise him and every one else to adopt. His objection to curtains arose from a want of confidence in his pupil-teachers to parallel groups, from his lack of knowledge of their uses, and from hear-say. After looking round the school, the master invited me to accompany him and and the first class into the class. Here the class (which consisted of boys of from eight to twelve years of age) sat all round the room, and the following conversation took place :

Master." What is the subject of the lesson this morning?"
Boys.-"Chemistry, Algebra."

M.-"What was the subject yesterday?"

B.-"Geometry."

M.-"Yes! Then Chemistry is the subject of this morning's lesson." I am bound to confess that I was greatly surprised to hear all this from a class taught by one who, I believe, has obtained a prize from Lord Ashburton, for teaching "Common Things." However, he kindly postponed the lesson in order to give me an opportunity of examining the class. I told the boys to multiply £5 6s. 74d. by 365, and found that many could not do anything at it, and only five or six got the answer correctly: two boys only could do an ordinary sum in simple proportion. The class sang some two or three pieces very creditably-much more so than is commonly the case in schools. Wishing the master success, which I feel sure he will obtain when he has had more experience and aims lower, I left the school greatly pleased with much that I had heard and seen, and thankful for the frankness and courtesy with which I had been welcomed.

SCHOOL B.-This school is situated in an agricultural town of about 4,000 or 5,000 inhabitants. The buildings are nearly new, and very well adapted to their purpose, excepting that the boys' room is separated from the girls' only by a wooden partition, which is insufficient to keep the noise of the one from interfering with the other. I was very sorry to find the master extremely young-I should think hardly 16 years old, certainly not more than 17, and withal very juvenile in appearance. I do not therefore wonder that only between thirty and forty boys usually attend the school, although many more are said to be on the books. It is a saddening reflection that the Parish school-I believe the only public one, except the Union school-of this large town, should be thus inefficient; that its present youth should be under the disadvantage of only having a stripling to make men of them; and that perhaps the damage now being done to education, as well as to the labouring class here, will take a generation to correct. To me the thought is sad indeed; for in this town it was that I myself was initiated into the mysteries of the horn book, and here the major part of my own boyhood's days was spent. Earnestly do I hope that ere long the committee of this and all other schools similarly circumstanced, will awake to a juster sense of their responsibilities and duties, and see that schools do not languish for lack of efficient and experienced masters, whom they are morally bound to procure. On the day of my visit I found the curate busily employed practising the services and chants to be sung at Church on the following Sunday. This I understood he did during two hours daily! I only stayed a few minutes, but sufficiently long to see that there were about 30 children in the room, the eldest of whom appeared under 10 years of age; that the music was altogether too difficult for such youngsters; and that the echo was immense. I did not observe that the room was well fitted up with apparatus, &c.

The girls' school is rather thinly attended also. The mistress seemed to be a very nice young person, and devoted to her work, and I therefore wondered at not seeing more girls at school.* She informed me that she had come from the North of England and had taken charge of this school in the hope of improving her health, which had hitherto failed her. I observed two well mannered pupil teachers, but they seemed to be defective in method, which I should think to be the worst characteristic of the school. I was unable to judge of the attainments of the children, as my visit was made in the afternoon, which is devoted to needlework: the children, however, were very quiet and nicely behaved, and looked fairly intelligent.-H.

*

**

It is our design to insert NOTES OF SCHOOLS in this fashion, in every Number. We shall ourselves report on some few, but we must be mainly dependent on contributors, whom we beg to aid us. Such criticisms to be useful must be thoroughly faithful, and as practical as possible. We shall in all cases omit any passages which may indicate the school visited, unless we have the sanction of the managers or master for mentioning it.-Ed. J. E.

* We confess that we do not share in this surprise. A schoolmistress who takes upon her duties, which of all others require vigorous health, because she is ailing, and who is assisted (?) by pupil teachers who want method, can hardly hope to succeed.-Ed. J. E.

Notes of Books.

Popular Astronomy by Francis Arago. Translated by Admiral Smyth and Robert Grant. In two volumes. London: Longmans.

HIS, in our opinion, is by far the best treatise on Popular Astronomy in existence. Herschel's work on the same subject in "Lardner's Cyclopædia" is an able treatise, and may be usefully studied by every young astronomer, but it is not to be compared to this in lucidity of arrangement and explanation. The bulk of the work, comprising two rather thick octavo volumes, may perhaps a little alarm a learner, but let him boldly settle to the perusal, and we will venture to predict that he will be charmed with the clearness of the style and the new ideas that will be continually unfolded to him. In fact there are few parts of it, which an intelligent pupil teacher in his fourth year would not readily understand.

The work does not simply comprise the subject of Astronomy, but all that it is necessary to know in order to comprehend this magnificent science. Thus the book commences with short treatises on the elements of geometry, mechanics, horology, and optics, all explained with unsurpassed ability.

There are however a few things in the work which we think might be improved. The chart of the heavens is by no means clear, and is calculated we fear in some points to puzzle students in our latitudes. Thus a youthful astronomer would naturally look for Orion, the brightest constellation of the heavens, but he will only find the two top stars, which of course are unintelligible without the rest. Again, if he looks for Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, he will not find it. Of course he will find them in the southern hemisphere, but from the change in the points of the compass, they are much more difficult to discover, and, in all probability, would not be discovered by an unassisted tyro at all. Hence we would recommend purchasers to furnish themselves with a good English map (not a globe) of the heavens, which, aided by this work, will enable them to become acquainted with the entire aspect of the northern hemisphere. We would earnestly press upon the Society of Arts, which has already done so much in this way, the production of a good cheap astronomical telescope. With such an assistant and "Arago's Popular Astronomy," we will venture to assert that cultivators of this fascinating science would be multiplied throughout the country to a very large extent.

A Practical Dictionary of the French and English Languages. By Leon Contanseau. Pp. 529. London: Longmans, 1857.

ONSIEUR Contanseau, Professor of French at the Military College, Addiscombe, has, after a laborious work of seven years, presented to the public a valuable French and English and English and French Dictionary,

L

:

which will materially assist the learner. The author has inserted "all the new words that have come into use in each language within the last half century." He has also introduced the compound words not translated literally and great care has been taken to discriminate between words with different meanings, of which he gives some good examples, as for instance"That young lady is the richest match in the town!" which sentence, the author says, was thus translated to him-"Cette jeune demoiselle est la plus riche allumette de la ville." Can any one conceive a more stupid blunder? The means of distinguishing between such words is a great point gained and not less important is the introduction into this volume of the most familiar idioms and phrases in daily use.

"

Pains have been taken to give effect to prepositions or adverbs, which, when annexed to our verbs, so frequently alter their sense. They are printed in Clarendon type and easily catch the eye. The verb "set affords a good instance: and no dictionary that we have ever seen is so complete in this respect.

In some few points however the work is overdone. An attempt is sometimes made to translate words and phrases which have in fact no synonyms in the other language: and there a complete failure results, such e. g. as changer for shift about. Changer means to change and nothing more. "To shift about" means, firstly, to change one's place and to do so moreover in an unsettled or vacillating spirit. The word changer utterly fails in expressing any thing of the sort. Occasionally we have the converse fault; the French expression e. g. "tomber en morceaux,” means more than "to shiver." It is to fall to pieces a very different thing. There are also some mistakes which are great blemishes. "Uxorious" is not esclave de sa femme. A man may be extravagantly fond of his wife without being her slave in any sense of the word. Some technical words of common use are omitted, such as rake," applied to the masts of a ship: "raking masts" is a common enough phrase, but "enfiler" certainly does not express it.

66

This is a work which, notwithstanding these defects, deserves high commendation, and is very far from being a mere compilation, which is the prevailing defect of all text books. It is now the best French Dictionary.

Logic in its Application to Language. By R. G. Latham, M.A. Pp. 282London: Walton and Maberly. 1856.

E confess that although this book evinces much of the learning and

us.

Even the title of the book misleads; indeed, the author begins his preface by pointing out that fact, and telling us that instead of passing for a work upon logic as applied to language, it expounds the amount of grammar which applies to logic. It is designed to show how far language should develope logic, but if so why is a title taken which exactly reverses and mis-states the subject matter of the book? The author very justly says, that logic can be taught as early as grammar, and that it is not, if properly taught, more difficult for beginners. We quite agree, and we should hail a logic made easy as a very great desideratum: but this book is not logic made easy with the exception of some of the remarks on propositions, such as paragraph 54, et sequitur and on the middle term. It is rather logic made